Blogs from Gansu, China, Asia - page 19

Well it was raining too hard on the night of the Opening ceremony so we didn't head down to the square. We just grabbed beers and watch the telecast in one of the hotel rooms. Luckily we had our Chinese Guide there as our interpretation of events didn't resemble the reality. It was a good night - very impressed with the drummers.... not so impressed with the puppets and the Australian's marching out outfit! We heard that someone was quite badly injured at the final rehearsal for the opening ... but couldn't really work out where that would have been (our guesses about Terracotta Warriors and juggling Pandas didn't eventuate!) The next morning we headed out early. We were free camping on the way to the most western part of the Great Wall. We stopped at ... read more

We headed out of Xian yesterday. really ready to get on the road. Xian is a nice city and all geared up for the Olympics but I was ready to see what was around the next corner. We loaded up the truck and started out with the aim of reaching Pingliang around 10 hrs later. (It was 300km.) The plan was to visit a big buddha along the way. About half an hour into the journey we hit the first section of a day long truck jam. There seemed to be no real reason for the road of trucks - watermelons, donkeys, chickens, goats - but the truck crawl lasted for around 4hrs. Trucks cutting in and then just stopping. The 10 hrs turned into a 14hrs journey. We reached Pingliang around 9pm and basically ... read more

After crossing the Taklamakan desert (lit. go in, don't come out) and visiting the world's second LOWEST late (near Turpan, 175m below sea level) I cross into Gansu province and head for Jiayuguan to visit the fort at the very Western end of the Great Wall. Building work on the wall began in abou 220BC by the Qin (pronounced Chin) dynasty, and the remaining parts of these sections are made from mud-bricks. The stone parts of the wall that we're used to seeing pictures of were mainly built during the Ming dynasty 1500 years later, in an attempt to keep the Mongols, and later the Manchu, out of China. It proved ineffective on both occasions. The fort was impressive, with huge fortifications with pagoda-like roof structures, and an excellent museum, but it was difficult to tell ... read more

I say for a couple of nights in a town called Liujaxia, where they obviously don't see many Westerners from the looks I got, and caught a boat up the Huang He (Yellow River) from the huge Dam, 60km to the Bingling Si Buddha caves. An enormous seated Buddha has been carved from the cliff face. At 27m high and 1600 years old, it's an amazing thing to behold (though not the biggest in China by a long way) and some of the other carvings there are both old and beautiful, a bit like me. I took a half hour walk up the valley to visit a small working Buddhist temple and had tea and biscuits with a very lonely monk call Putojansu. It was a surreal experience. On the speed-boat on the way back to ... read more

After I finished the last post, i went down to the "night market" and had some dinner of chuanr (kabobs) and some bread, walked around some more, and came across this group of kids in front of a Dico's (Chinese KFC) dancing to this music. It was really funny, just watching them, and I got some pictures as well. Went back to the hotel, took a shower, helped out some Americans who were trying to communicate with the hotel staff, then went up to bed to chill, and relax. Turns out, the chuanr (i think) was a bad idea, so I wake up at 12ish with stomach issues, and 4 immodium later, I got a halfway decent night of sleep. Woke up at 5:15 to catch my train out of Jiayuguan to Dunhuang. The train ride ... read more